Aug 11 (Reuters) – Derivatives exchange CME said on Tuesday it would launch the world’s first index-based hockey futures, a novel product designed to track indexes built from real-time performance statistics for every National Hockey League team.
Here are some details:
• U.S. exchanges and prediction markets have looked to bring popular cultural and emerging economic themes into financial markets, creating new instruments for businesses and investors.
• The new contracts will track CME FutureSports Performance Indexes and are set to launch on September 28, pending regulatory review, using real-time NHL statistics beginning with the 2026-2027 season.
• “Financial institutions, companies and individuals rely on the transparency and infrastructure of CME Group to hedge across all investable asset classes,” Tim McCourt, CME’s senior managing director and global head of equities, FX and alternative products, said.
• McCourt said the product would provide a capital-efficient way for fans, sponsors, broadcasters and others to navigate the risk associated with the performance of each NHL team.
• Separately, the company announced plans to launch two compute futures contracts on October 5, pending regulatory review.
• CME said the trading tools would bring hedging and investment vehicles to market participants looking to manage the cost of compute, processing power and hardware infrastructure that machines need to train and run AI models.
(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
